Re: What's your most expensive mistake?

Getting married the first time even when everyone said no!

Paying off my bike for $6500 and selling it 2 weeks later for $4800. Decent loss

Buying a 1988 Jetta Carat, and having a girlfriend.

The most costly was purchasing a 1989 Jetta Carat... thousands down the drain in just 4 months. The stupidest/costliest was forgetting to put in that ONE bolt that holds the lower control-arm pin to the hub... wow. Didn't even make it out of the driveway before I had body damage and lost a lot of suspension/drivetrain parts, including the inner CV joint.

TOE

A secondhand Peugeut 505

Marriage????

TR7.

'74 Fiat 128 - Only non VW I've ever owned.

buying a 1987 Audi 5000S (100S) secondhand. I should have known it would be trouble because the price was so low (and Audi resale prices at the time were in the toilet thanks to the bogus "unintended acceleration" scare). in the end it was cheaper and better for all to let my lender repossess the goddam thing, which was sort of funny because it had been repossessed originally from the first owner. cursed car. the first year was OK because it was still under warranty, but after that it was constantly in the shop and the repair costs were seriously hurting my finances.

when everything worked, it was a great car; not terribly powerful with the 130HP I-5 and automatic, but on the highway at 80-90mph it was perfect. til something else broke.

That's easy, Alfa Romeo. Had two of them, a 10 year old '71 and a two year old '91. The '71 was the more reliable if you can believe it. Even the Bosch components in the '91 broke (two blown Motronic fuel pumps among other items). Stuck windows, broken fan blades, dead batteries, several tows... I'll never ever (I hope) buy another Italian car.

Not that my '01 Eurovan is all that reliable. It had a $1K ignition system problem just months before the warranty ran out (at 2 years and just 19,000 miles). _5_months_ out of warranty the air conditioning compressor came apart. A $1,650 repair! Thank goodness for the extended warranty purchased for $1K along with the car.

Pan

Friend of mine had a 20v GTV which had to be towed numerous times in it's first couple of years of life -- also many infuriating niggles. He traded it early, and suffice to say, is not impressed with Alfa Romeo.

-- S i g n a l @ l i n e o n e . n e t

Buying a 1983 Rabbit.

The AC sucked real bad, fixed multiple times under warranty. The fuel tank corroded out at 30K miles, $700 fix in 1984. 10% of new car price. The O2 sensor went bad at 15K The cooling system started getting flakey. The Blaupunk went up in smoke

Best move... sold it at 38K miles to an obnoxious & arrogant Iranian guy for his wife.